Nobody was fired for buying IBM, er, downloading Chrome

"Google's stance is we support two versions of IE and Firefox. We say: 'If you are good app customers, we recommend Chrome for the HTML5 support'," Mistry told The Reg.

This is exactly the same strategy Microsoft used for years: it claimed that, to get the best from one piece of Redmond gear, you really needed another piece of Microsoft software. Often that was Windows and Internet Explorer.

Companies may want to stick with Microsoft because they feel safer in the hands of CEO Steve Ballmer; it's a big company that rolls out fixes for its software; it provides management tools; and it has a roadmap that demonstrates its long-term commitment.

Nobody was fired for buying IBM technology, or so the saying goes. The same went for Microsoft - and is it the case now for Google? Thanks to the runaway success of Google's advertising system, Google's name is not exactly identified with business - it's seen as something for the consumer.

And like every other web service provider today, when it comes to management tools and a development roadmap you're pretty much on your own: you take the roadmap and any other details you can when they are published on a blog.

Google also comes with a certain amount of baggage, too: can you really trust Chrome to not pass your activities to Mountain View to prime Google's search and advertising algorithms? It's a question that has kept some businesses out of the web giant's reach.

"As a product manager, I have to dispel myths - even basic things," Mistry told The Reg. "A marketing effort is underway to understand what Google can do inform management from an enterprise policy perspective."

Mistry said Chrome packs in 150 management controls so administrators can, for example, turn off tab synching and automatic updates - the latter being a process that magically fetches and installs the latest build of Chrome whether one wants it or not. It's the ability to stop IE automatically upgrading that makes IT departments feel safer: it gives admin bods the power to test new versions of the browser with their corporate-critical apps before rolling them out, averting potential disasters caused by incompatibilities. The inability to disable auto-updates in Chrome a "big misconception", Google told us.

The project manager reckons Google is serious about providing enterprise-class support, and has "dozens" of "dedicated" engineers in three offices working on "enterprise features" in Chrome.

"We do more than pick up the phone and give help," Mistry said.

"We have front and back line - people file tickets, get engineers involved, provide escalation. One of the areas where we are better than other browser makers is that every single customer can see the status of every issue. Chrome not a locked-down black-box browser that updates once every two to three years. I see companies commenting on bug fixes and thanking our engineers."

What of the privacy debate: how much does Google do to hoover up web data to build profiles on office employees, if at all?

"We are extremely cautions about privacy. People think Google knows what is Chrome doing - Google doesn't," he countered. With a business built squarely on ads and search, and figuring out what you are interested in, doubters will take more convincing.

Chrome is evolving. Google's free cross-platform web browser is slowly becoming what Internet Explorer was to Microsoft: a gateway to other products and services from the company. This time it's Google Drive; under Microsoft it was Windows Update and MSN. Is Google becoming the new Microsoft? Redmond developed robust management tools and serious support imparted over the phone.

Time will tell whether Google's model is to enterprises' tastes, whether Google must improve the way it sells its browser's capabilities and controls, and whether it will need to become even more like Microsoft. ®